Arts-Sciences collaborative Research-Creation: Conceptual, Methodological and Organizational Strategies

Symposium:

• ISEA2023: 28th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Sofian Audry
• Danny Perreault
• Manuelle Freire

• Theme: Interactive – Networked – Human Computer Interaction

  The imperative for interdisciplinary research has been around and growing, promoted by major research funding bodies for a few decades. As a result, we can now begin to study how such research operates and compare case studies to study effective modes of interdisciplinary collaboration. However, in the majority of existing reports the disciplines assembled are from relatively close epistemic cultures and the effectiveness of collaborations usually correlates with applied results or scientific breakthroughs. Furthermore, in most reports, institutional and organizational considerations are set as the background conditions for the research that is conducted (Stokols, Hall, Taylor, & Moser, 2008 ; Cooke and Hilton, 2015)​. Fewer studies pertain to collaborations across the arts and the sciences, and rarely address how the institutional structures change or are affected by new types of research.

  The four collaborative art-science projects that we will present and examine in the first part of this workshop are examples of diverse disciplinary assemblages operating in different institutional contexts. They are projects that emerge from associations of radically distant disciplinary cultures that instigate change in the systemic structures of their institutional contexts.

  The second part of this workshop will identify challenges and organizational strategies for the constitution of teams and better management of art-science research projects, research labs and institutes. Through the method of a focus group deploying an Open Space forum methodology (Owen, 2008), presenters and participants will devise recommendations to inform policies for funding research and communication / dissemination of research, to increase dissemination and perceived value of such endeavors for all stakeholders, specifically for artists-researchers in what comes to professional advancement in academia.